MEMOIR OF DANIEL TREAD WELL. 



329 



alone, by a tedious process, the various articles were gradually fashioned, or beaten 

 up, with little certainty of exact resemblance in articles intended to be similar. 

 Young Treadwell made for his master a set of forms or "swages," between which 

 the rolled plate of silver was laid, and by a few blows or strong pressure received 

 the desired form with great exactness. About this time, having but little business 

 and being in poor health, he made a journey southward, hoping to improve 

 both. 



"In 1812," continues the Autobiography, "the country had just entered upon war with 



Great Britain. The hard times were admonishing the people not to indulge in luxuries of 

 gold and silver, and my prospect of success was not brilliant. However, on an offer from 

 Mr. Churchill that I should join him at once in the trade, I determined to adventure with him. 

 I continued this partnership about four years. At the end of that time, finding thai I did not 

 advance in wealth in what I was engaged, and my attention being turned more and more to 



the operation of manufacture by machinery, I engaged in the invention of a inaehinc for 



making wood screws; that is, the screws used by carpenters and cabinet-makers for fastening 

 together their structures. I undertook this machine in connection with Mr, Phineas Dow, a 

 man of considerable skill and ingenuity, who was ten years my senior. We were en- 

 gaged at first irregularly upon this machine about two years, when it was finished in an 

 imperfect form, and with the aid of a friend, General William II. Sumner of Boston, put in 

 operation in a mill at Saugus. It performed the operation of making the screw entirely with- 

 out the aid of the hand : taking in the wire at one end, it delivered a finished screw at the 



other. It was therefore very complicate, but much admired for its ingenuity. It was never 



made really practically successful in the form in which we made it, but it contained many of 

 the elements upon which the screw machinery of the present time is constructed.'' 



Mr. Dow says : " Mr. Treadwell was at work through the day as apprentice, 

 journeyman, or partner with Mr. Churchill, a silversmith, whose shop was next 

 mine, but the evenings of more than a year were spent i'n my shop, where we 

 together invented, built, and perfected the machine." They found it difficult to get 

 suitable wire ; none was made in this country, and the English wire during the war 

 of 1812 was costly and hard to obtain ; and capital was not abundant with them. 

 After a while came the peace with Great Britain, and imported screws again 

 appeared in plenty. In September, 1817, the machine was sent to Philadelphia, and, 

 after beins- exhibited awhile, was sold with the right of using it for about $5,000. 



The inventors had counted largely on the continuance of war and the "Non- 

 Importation Act " to give them a monopoly of screw-making, and a chance to get 



rich ; this the return of peace spoiled. 



The petition of Phineas Dow and Daniel Treadwell that letters patent may be 

 issued, is addressed to John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, and is accompanied 

 by a " specification of a machine for making screws of metallic wire, commonly called 



